Three Louisana siblings were killed in a horrific wrong-way Louisiana highway crash their family says was caused by an ‘intoxicated’ driver.
Lindy Simmons, 20, Christopher Simmons, 17, and Kamryn Simmons, 15, of Jeanerette, Louisiana, died in the December 17 crash on Interstate 49 near St. Landry Parish.
Their older sister, Katie DeRouen, shared in a GoFundMe page how the deaths have shattered the family.
‘I don’t know how to start or where to begin,’ DeRouen, 31, wrote on Sunday. ‘Their Christmas gifts are still wrapped under the tree waiting for them.
‘Our lives are shattered.
The pickup truck driver John Lundy, 54, of Dallas, Georgia, was also killed. Police have not yet determined whether he was intoxicated.
He and Lindy, a Nicholls State University student and school photographer – who was driving the family car – were killed on impact.
Kamryn, who was described as the ‘sweetest person on earth’ and Christopher – who was described as ‘mom’s angel child’ and planned to keep retaking his ACT until he got a score of 32 – were taken to separate hospitals, where they later succumbed to their injuries and were identified by DeRouen.
Her father Ray Simmons, 58, texted DeRouen after the crash, writing: ‘Mom got in a wreck. It’s not looking good, but she’s stable.’
DeRouen, who lives a few towns over in New Iberia, ‘flew’ to Lafayette General Medical Center (LGMC) to meet her brother Shea, 30, and dad.
Unsure about the status of her siblings, DeRouen began calling ‘every hospital we could think of to locate them.’ Her siblings had not been identified by police when they were rushed off to the hospital, making it harder for them to be located.
‘None of my siblings were at LGMC, where my mom was, and we called every hospital we could think of to locate them,’ she wrote. ‘What we didn’t realize was, the hospitals that had taken them in did not know who they were, therefore their names were not showing up [in the system].’
After her father received a call from a state trooper to tell them the ‘young blonde that was driving’ did not survive, he informed the family the other siblings may have been taken to Opelousas General hospital – an almost 40-minute drive away.
When DeRouen called on her way there, the operator told her that none of her sibling’s names were in the system, but there was ‘someone from a car accident if I wanted to come and identify them.’
‘I expected to walk into one of my siblings in the hospital bed, bruised and banged up, but alive,’ Katie wrote. ‘We eventually were led to the room where they unzipped my sweet baby sister’s body bag and revealed to me her perfect face. “Yes, that’s Kamryn.”‘
